Sunday, September 14, 2008

Lily and Hanlin chasing bubbles in the Baihai Park. Boy that is a lot of DON'T's!! they are nice enough here to give you a count down to your demise as you cross the street!!

Hanlin running around, he wouldn't go onto the grass, he read the DON'T sign! LOL Where as LIly was all over the grass having a ball!

This was soo stinking steep! I can't believe that we took up 2 strollers! Although it was a good move as the little ones would never of gotten as far as we went. Cheryl, Lily our guide and Barb! Hall of wisdom...or wishful thinking on Cheryl's part!! Hhaaaaaa haaaaa Crazy family picture!!

coming down the Wall... Barb is at the bottom of the photo, jogging down! and here they are coming down.. almost vertical.. Isabelle is in the pink baseball cap holding onto the rail, abigail is in a pink top with black sweter almost next to her doing something with her camera and Cheryl is a bit behind them in the red tank top ont he other side of the railing than Isabelle.Time out time on the wall! 2 sections were Frank and the girls went.

this lady is sewing the soles of shoes by hand. the girls trying thier hand at writing on slate.

Hi again.

WOW... so much to type about... not sure where to start...First of all, My pack mule, oh I mean Frank is all better..LOL

So yesterday we headed off to the Bai Hai market, and park. It is a beautiful park with a huge temple that has smaller temples all around it. The market part was across the street and also was gorgeous. I bought more tea cups and some little serving plates and also some wonderful white tea and some fruit tea for the girls.

Lu I picked you up something from this market, no, not tea stuff, but I also bought one for myself. I'll try to be careful and not wear it in pics! LOL

We took the bus and then the subway to and from the market. It got late last night and we didn't arrive home till about 8:30pm.Today we took the tour bus with everyone to the Great Wall, Cheryl thought it was fantastic, Barb did too. We all climb as far as we could, Frank and I each pushing a stroller up the verticle ramp!! then I stayed with the little ones as the others "marched" on up to the top, as far as they could go. the wall was gated off as the section they got to wasn't renovated yet so they couldn't go any futher. But some people actually jumped over the little rail and went on a bit futher...and yes... you guess it.... so did they... god forbid they listen!!they didn't go far just hopped over took a pic and came back!Lily and Hanlin were getting pretty antsy waiting, so I yanked out Canada Day tattoo's from July 1st that I had stuffed in my bag and gave them each a tattoo!! LOL then we left the strollers and went for a little walk. Both kids started to whine, and Lily , when I leaned my face to hers to talk to her, gave me a push. So she had a "3 minute time out" on the Great Wall!! YOu should of seen the people walking by me with Lily standing with her face against the wall. What a riot!! I didnt make her stand like that! She opted to! and not only that she decided time out was where she wanted to be, so she stayed there for about 6mins! while people walked by and took pics!then Hanlin needed to pee, so here I have 1 in time out and the other peeing on the Great Wall! Ohhh I'm sure I'm not allowed back! lol

On the bus on the way back to the hotel, Hanlin got "bus sick" and almost threw up. It was sooo bad! Poor little guy! He was soo green and gagging.

On that note.... I need advice.....He WILL NOT poop for us!! He understands what we are asking, and he will pee and he'll tell us that he needs to go. But he WILL NOT poop. He is frightened to have a dump in the toliet.Has anyone have any idea what to do. I can't buy nght time pull ups here, the guides have talked to him, but not what I want them to say. They just ask him if he needs to go, not that he HAS TO GO, he has to use it. Also he had a small accident in his pants a few days ago. So we know he needs to go and we know he is holding it. He even does the "gotta go poop" dance, but still won't go. We tried warm bathes, I've even found a great site that says on the computer, in chinese, "Do you have to poop?"At first he was frightened to pee on a western toliet, and same with having a bath, never had one in a big tub. He is fine with both of those now, but this poop thing is making him uncomfortable in his belly. I have supositories, but boy, I soooo don't want to use them. We've even tried him many times on a squatty potty. Then there is the off chance that he always went in his pants, but the foster mother didn't mention that to me, and she did mention a lot to me.

anyway, enough about poop. LOLThis little chinese translator site I foundis great, if anyone has any others, please include the link in your comments. The one I found only has basic sentences. Are you happy? Do you need to pee?/Poop? etc..We did a drive by of the Olympic venues tonight on the way home, I didn't take out the camera as I was holding the cloth for Frank who was holding a bag in front of Hanlin's mouth! LOL I hope to go back for a closer look any way.Umm... That is all I can think of for now. I know there is more... I'm sure there is, but I can't think of anything right now! sorry.oh he is picking up bits of english, Abigail taught him to say "i'm so cool" and he shouts it out all the time now!

Oh yeah I forgot.... It's moon festival here tonight and everywhere we go for the last week people have been giving us boxes of moon cakes!! The foster mother gave us 8 boxes... yes, 8 boxes, each box with 8 to 10 in them..... With got "rid" of some consolidated others and we were down to 3 boxes, then the hotel gave us 2 more.. and now our guide tried to give us some.. after I told her how many we have, she said we can open our own store! LOL

they celebrate it here by going out to supper with family. So every resturant in the city would be booked! We stayed home anyway.

Penny, I did buy some moon cake molds, I had to get them at an old market.. they are wooden molds, with long handles, with the traditional cravings on the inside. Not too expensive, but you can't find any new ones.

7 comments:

Hi Krista,I just read your update...an another eventful day at the Great Wall!

As for Hanlin's bathroom issue...try taking him to a squat pottie as that's what he is used to. The big American toilet can be scary and I know Evan always prefered the squat toilet as this is what was familiar. I know the hotel probably doesn't have one but the restaurants, etc...next door will and even though they are probably not up to our standards of cleanliness :-), Hanlin will be used to them and will most likely feel more comfortable.

Hello again...just reread your post more carefully and saw you did try the squat toilet. Wierd that he won't use that toilet if that's how he alwasy went to the bathroom. Maybe he didn't poop on the toilet ever? Can your guide ask him where he usually poops? She may be able to find out in Chinese what his "routine" for pooping is.

Try holding over the toilet(his bach against your chest and your arms under his knees and then you make the noise as if you are bearing down),we did this twice in China and again last week with M when she was constipated,it worked for us.

Sorry we haven't posted until now. Took us quite some time to figure out that you had left the blog site on mom's computer.

What an amazing trip you are having! We can't wait to see Hanlin and hear more of those wonderful stories in person.

Lasse, Celine, Karl and I are staying at your house right now. We had trouble finding the Saturn, but have finally located it safe and sound. The Fredericton Jazz festival is on and we have been having a wonderful, relaxing time. Today we had brunch with Jeff and Lu and the kids. Will probably go home tomorrow or the next day.